1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an educational apparatus and method for using the apparatus, more specifically, to an apparatus and method for teaching and building character.
2. Background
Young people may find education to be a foreign and intimidating experience. Toys, on the other hand, are a familiar and inviting medium among them. The use of toys in education therefore can help encourage young people to embrace the learning process. Children also may be hesitant to learn the spelling, meaning, and usage of particular words, such as descriptive words relating to personal behavior and character. A toy for teaching these elements therefore would help young people to learn the meaning and usage of such words.
Devices and systems for displaying indicia on structural units have been described in past publications. In some instances, the indicia-bearing devices would include a cubical structure with a plurality of faces, whereby each face has a single letter or word superimposed thereon. Furthermore, some indicia-bearing devices would provide a means for forming phrases and sentences.
The prior art discloses numerous toy block devices including alpha-numeric characters. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,670,427 issued on Jun. 20, 1972 to Stolpen discloses a language teaching apparatus whereby boxes have words superimposed thereon. Words are selected for a particular box based on the grammatical part and class of speech thereof. U.S. Pat. No. 3,728,800 issued on Apr. 24, 1973 to Magram discloses an educational apparatus comprising structural units which challenges one to create grammatically correct sentences. U.S. Pat. No. 4,508,347 issued on Apr. 2, 1985 to Shettler discloses an apparatus which includes structural units for creating letters of the alphabet. U.S. Pat. No. 5,275,567 issued on Jan. 4, 1994 to Whitfield discloses an apparatus which includes structural units whereby individual letters and corresponding Braille characters are superimposed thereon.
While such toys may assist in teaching the appearance of words, these devices do not provide a convenient method for teaching the usage, spelling, formation, and meaning of particular words. Moreover, these toys fail to provide structural units for simultaneously relating a descriptive word with a letter and challenging one to spell the words, make sentences out of the words and provide synonyms for the words.
For the foregoing reasons, there is a need for an apparatus for teaching children character and a method for teaching children character.